Eddie Jones: I inherited Rassie Erasmus’ Springbok laptop, I couldn’t believe my eyes
Eddie Jones and Springboks head coach Rassie Erasmus.
Eddie Jones hails Springboks boss Rassie Erasmus in his latest Planet Rugby column ahead of the 2025 Rugby Championship.
Tresure Trove
As someone that’s coached sides against Rassie Erasmus for many years now, I’ve come to admire the man greatly and as we move into the Rugby Championship, it’s always exciting to see what antics he’s going to come up with next!
Rassie is a cult figure in South Africa and rugby itself now, but to view him just as that is wide of the mark.
The man is a quite brilliant and super detailed coach, one that fully understands the DNA of Springbok rugby, yet plays around the options on the fringes to move their game to new heights. He’s like a guy that always buys a Mercedes every year, sticking to their core qualities, but changes the options and spec every time to see what works best and what meets his current needs. By that I mean he never strays far from the core brand, but he’s always looking to find new competitive advantages to support that bedrock of direct, physical and aerial superiority.
In 2007, I took over from Rassie at the Springboks as technical advisor – he moved to the Stormers at that time as head coach, leaving the technical role vacant. I inherited his laptop from the Bok management, and I couldn’t believe my eyes at the detail and the depth of the work I found on it. Every player, every team and every scenario had deep playbooks and strategy around them; there was hardly a hole in his work, all underpinned by logic, proof and, really importantly, all placed within the context of the way the Boks played. It was a treasure trove of rugby data and analysis that really had a huge impact on me and it made me realise the deep technical understanding that Rassie has underneath his charismatic media persona.
Selection Key
There’s a lot of noise now that South Africa have five potential Test quality teams that they can or could name, but that’s a smokescreen and means very little as a standalone. In simple terms, you can only play 15 players and eight replacements, so the argument is academic.
However, in the context of Erasmus, it means that selection and I mean deeply detailed situational selection for specific scenarios and opponents, is the key challenge he has. And he is an outstanding selector – one that uses the data and the information I alluded to, to deliver teams capable of playing with nuance in the context of his opponents.
A really good example of this is the back row he’s selected to play the Wallabies.
Marco van Staden is the hardest player on or over the ball that the Springboks have, and against the Wallabies, who dominated over the ball in the third Test against the Lions, he’s picked an asset for a specific scenario. Then, by moving Siya Kolisi to eight, he has two men that are predominantly opensides supporting each other in a focused task of winning that over the ball battle, key in Joburg where ruck speed and ball speed is so fast due to the conditions.
That breakdown area was a real threat to the Boks, yet Rassie has spotted it, prepared for it and mitigated that threat through intelligent and focused use of his deep squad. It might be that when playing Argentina, South Africa might go for a bigger and more collision-based flank to counter the size of Los Pumas, demonstrating the importance of getting this selection spot on.
Expanding the Gameplan
Tony Brown’s addition to the Bok backroom team is also a statement of intent by Erasmus. It shows he wants to play more expansively, whilst retaining the core physicality of the Springboks brand and that means that his team will be looking to play more rucks, faster rucks and supporting/clearing with speed and precision to maintain pressure, another reason for the backrow selection.
There are some really brilliant young players coming through the ranks to support this style and to enable that expansive game plan. At 15, I’ve been mightily impressed with Aphelele Fassi. He’s a massive full-back, has huge courage under the high ball and has gas to offer a fantastic attacking threat. He’s a different style to Willie le Roux, who was an enabler, a second set of eyes rather like Elliot Daly for England or Thomas Ramos for France, and for sure, Handre Pollard or the Bok ten will miss Willie’s intellect, but they’ll relish Aphelele’s pace and threat.
At nine, if all the half-backs in the world had a 100m sprint race, I reckon Grant Williams would win it by five metres. The guy has electric pace, a real point of difference, one that allows him to challenge a defence that’s retreating and resetting, finding gaps by maintaining pace from the second and third rucks.
At Ellis Park, that ruck speed and the cracks that open under fatigue in defence at altitude should be a key strategic focus; players are burning with those fatigue efforts and that gives spaces to attack that you don’t quite get at sea or normal level grounds, and I think Williams might just thrive this season as he nails down the starting spot.
Rassie Erasmus: Springboks squad has accepted ‘shared jerseys’ concept with no ‘out-and-out best’
Heavyweight Contest
Looking ahead to Saturday, the biggest match-up I’m looking forward to is Will Skelton v Eben Etzebeth. This is a bout that Eddie Hearn would be pleased to promote- the two best heavyweights in the world going toe to toe!
Knowing them both well, they’ll be bouncing off the walls in training this week, they’ll want to tear pieces out of each other on Saturday and no quarter will be given by either man.
Will is key to the Wallabies. What he does better than anyone else is get his head and shoulders through contact and out the other side to win the collision and to set up quick ball. Taniela Tupou does this too, but he’ll have his hands full dealing with the Bok scrum.
Nevertheless, the Wallabies will have some 297kg on their tighthead side- and that’s before breakfast! And that will be a challenge in itself, even for a side as good in the setpiece as the Boks.
The other point of difference I hope to see from Australia is the brilliance of Joseph Suaalii in the centre. In the Lions series, the moment he showed inside, stepped outside and stood Jamison Gibson-Park up was the moment that created the Peitch try and his speed in Joburg will be a key asset for Australia. Add in Max Jorgenson, a real try-getter as they say in Japan, and Australia are not short of firepower as long as the back three respect the threat of the Springbok wings and full back in the aerial battle – again a facet of play that is severely impacted by altitude where the ball carries higher and further, and lands faster, than elsewhere.
This is a Wallaby side on the up and they are a real threat to the Boks for the first time in a long time. I am relishing the Test but I’m pragmatic about Australia’s chances; they have to deal with the pace on the highveld, they have to get their big units going deep in energy-sapping conditions and they have to ensure they win the physical if they’re to cause an upset. It’s a massive ask, and one that would be a real upset if it happened, but I am looking forward to a really intriguing battle, one where I am sure Erasmus will have a few tactical surprises for us.
